Rocket

The space elevator concept involves dropping a 36,000 km cable from an orbiting satellite down to Earth, rather than building a tower upward. If realized, it could reduce space cargo transport costs to between 1/100th and 1/10,000th of rocket launches.

About 80–90% of a rockets total weight is fuel. To send 1 kg of cargo to space, roughly 10 kg must be launched. Most of a rockets kinetic energy is carried away by the expelled gas, not the rocket itself.